Free Ghost On Duty (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by J. D. Winters Page A

and you hightailed it for your car. But we got here too soon, and your story had to change. So you made up this one.” He shrugged. “Tell me the truth, Ms. Keahi. How close is that to what really happened?”
    I looked at his face, looked into his ice blue eyes. This man really didn’t like me. That was unusual for me. Not everyone loved me, of course, (there’s no accounting for crazies),but most who didn’t were neutral and didn’t care about me at all. He cared. Only he cared in a bad way.  
    I was getting shivers again, only now they were about the captain. When somebody with this sort of authority takes a dislike to you, it can only mean trouble.  
    He had Roy drive me home in my own car. Another officer came behind to give him a ride back to the station. We didn’t talk at first, but I knew the drive would be over in about five minutes and I needed to tell him I wasn’t a liar.  
    “That scenario your boss gave about what I was doing there? Totally wrong,” I told him. “I went to see if I could pick up on any clues. That part was right. But I also wanted to see what had happened to the guns, because I saw them the day before the murder. He had gun racks full of them in the room where we met.”
    “Antiques?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know guns well enough to say. But they were prominent. And now they’re gone.”
    He glanced at me sideways. “What’s your theory?”
    “I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. “But I’d say it probably has something to do with the man who shot at me.”
    We were stopped at a light and he turned and searched my eyes. “That really happened.”
    I nodded slowly. “Yes, Roy. That really happened.”
    “So who was he?”
    I shook my head. “I never saw him before. Unless…” I grimaced. “Unless it was the person I thought I saw in the forest area behind the house on the day I came to meet with Ned and found him dead on the rocks.”
    Oh boy. I didn’t like to have to admit to leaving that out now that it seemed it might be relevant after all.  
    The light turned and we went through the intersection, but he pulled over to the side and parked, turning to me, looking fierce.  
    “Why didn’t you tell anyone about that before?”
    “I…it didn’t seem important. I wasn’t even sure what I’d seen was real, or even a person, until I saw him today. I think it was the same man.”
    He grimaced, thinking hard. “Okay,” he said, so softly I was pretty sure he was talking to himself. “Okay.”
    He pulled back onto the highway and continued toward home.  
    “What are you going to do?” I asked him.  
    “I’m going back out there.”

Chapter Nine

    I nodded slowly, understanding the impulse. “Will Captain Stone let you?”
    He didn’t answer that, but his mouth hardened. He pulled up in front of Bebe’s house. We both got out of the car. His fellow detective settled in behind my car, waiting. I said good-bye, starting for the house. Then I turned back. “Hey Roy?” I said, my voice trembling just a little bit. “Thanks for believing me.”
    He looked like he wanted to take a step toward me, but he pulled back and nodded. “I’ll call you later,” was all he said. And then he was gone.  
    I watched as they took the corner and disappeared, wishing I’d warned him not to go back there alone. But there was no need, was there? He would take other cops with him. That was the way they worked. Right?
    I went into the house, arriving just in time to catch Bebe before she left to meet with a distributor who needed some information for her operation. She had a line of tabletop arrangements and special holiday wreaths that was really popular at this time of the year and she had her people working around the clock to keep up with the demand. Things were pretty tough since she’d lost her foreman—he was going to be spending some time in prison, hopefully, after he killed two people and tried to kill me.  
    “I might get caught up in decisions